Financial transaction cards and devices, such as commercial credit cards, debit cards, transfer funds cards, private label cards, proximity type devices (i.e. such as SPEEDPASS® devices) and stored value cards are widely used for payments, cash advances and other financial transactions. With financial transaction cards, data for identifying the customer, such as an account number, a security code, or other identifying data is typically magnetically stored on a magnetic tape or strip embedded into the back-side of these types of instruments. When a transaction is to be performed at a retail store or other channel, a customer may hand his or her card to an employee of the retail store for scanning the magnetic information into a communication device. When a credit card is utilized in a bank, in order to receive a cash advance, the transaction may for instance be handled by either a teller or an automated teller machine (ATM). In the case of an ATM, the card is placed inside the ATM and the card owner enters a personal identification number (PIN) which is transmitted to the credit card company along with the transaction information. When the PIN is found to be incorrect, most credit card companies send to the card owner a request to re-enter the PIN. Financial transaction cards used herein may also include smart cards, i.e., cards having electronic circuits thereon.
Some card issuers have offered incentive programs to increase the use of their cards. For example, credit card rebate systems such as the DISCOVER® card or the like, may provide a rebate or rewards point program tied to general card usage. The rebate is enjoyed by the cardholder who receives a check or credit on his or her account. Others have suggested credit card systems that transfer a predetermined amount of money to an investment account periodically and bill the cardholder through the credit card account. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,470 describes a credit card system in combination with a rebate that is transferred to an investment account. However, among other limitations, existing cards provide bonuses or rebates based only on individual card usage. Moreover, the benefit or rebate is only enjoyed by the cardholder who receives a check or credit on his or her account.
Generally, processing of charitable and other civic, donation-type or other contributions requires considerable time and resources to scout out contributions, to solicit pledges on behalf of fundraising organizations, to have contributors fill out a pledge card, and to have contributors honor their pledges. Considerable time and resources are also required to process a pledge made by cash or check to get the funds into the fundraising organization's or the recipient's account. Processing charitable contributions also involves other costs such as the use of volunteers to open envelopes, count cash contributions and gifts, segregate cash contributions and gifts, deposit costs associated with depositing cash into a fundraising organization account, and the like.
Some have suggested the use of financial transaction cards in connection with methods and systems for making charitable contributions. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,696,366 to Ziarno (Ziarno) describes a method and system for streamlining the giving of contribution and gift commitments. Ziarno describes a method and system that require the use of a terminal in fundraising events for the solicitation and receiving of contributions and gifts. The terminal is a hand held unit with a wire-less communication link that includes a card processor, a card reader and accompanying circuitry that can read smart cards. The terminal accepts cash currency contributions, and card contributions.
However, no organized manner to fund selective charitable or other accounts based on collective, multi-party activity exists.